


The Beginning

by legilimancer



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 21:56:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legilimancer/pseuds/legilimancer
Summary: "Missing Scenes" from between episodes 101 and 102 exploring the start of Steve and Danny's friendship.





	The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of head canon for me to fill out the amazing relationship between Steve and Danny. I wanted to explore a few things - how their friendship developed, how Danny really learned to cook (I'm not buying that "watching the food network" excuse!), Danny's adjustment to living in Hawaii, a little depth to Steve outside of being a Navy Commander who likes to shoot people and blow stuff up.

The weekend at the Kahala hotel with Grace had been magical. Short of the first weekend Danny had spent with his daughter following their initial estrangement when Rachel first relocated his daughter to Hawaii, it was the best weekend they had shared since he moved here. 

That first weekend had been so filled with joy at their reunion that Grace hadn’t really noticed how horrible his new apartment really was. Surrounded by unpacked boxes, Grace had been excited about the potential of Danny’s new home. A few months in and the reality of the dark, cramped main room and Grace’s own tiny bedroom with a cheap dresser barely fitting in next to her bed had sunk in. She put on a happy face, but Danny knew his daughter noticed the unpleasant contrast between Stan and Rachel’s Kahala mansion and his own crappy rental on the outskirts of Honolulu. 

Their home in New Jersey had been modest but reasonably spacious with a tiny scrap of grass out back big enough for a barbecue and games of catch. More importantly, it had been a quick fifteen minute drive to his parent’s house, and within a half hour of her aunts and uncle. In Jersey they would have spent their time together with his family – ball games with Matt, dinners with his parents, afternoons playing with her cousins. Now they spent their time in his crappy apartment, playing boardgames and watching movies on Netflix he could barely afford but managed since he definitely couldn’t afford cable. 

He faked his way through cooking pancake breakfasts, never having really cooked anything more difficult than burgers on the grill in the summer and the occasional grilled cheese. He could handle deli sandwiches for lunch, and usually resorted to takeout for dinner. Even that was hit or miss – restaurants in Oahu were filled with tourists and stupidly expensive. The slightly more affordable fast food joints were weird – he didn’t understand half the menu at Zippy’s, he had yet to find a decent slice of pizza, and the cheap “plate lunches” everywhere were a weird mix of strange meats and macaroni salad. 

He knew this was no life for his daughter. Stan and Rachel had her in private school, a driver chauffeuring her around to her tennis lessons at Stan’s fancy country club, and he could barely afford to take Grace out to play minigolf on their weekends. The cash he had after selling their heavily mortgaged house in Jersey hadn’t gone far after Rachel took her half. The divorce lawyer’s fees after their custody battle had been substantial. By the time he settled his debts in Jersey, bought a plane ticket to Hawaii, shipped his stuff to Oahu, forked over money for a fleabag motel while apartment hunting and then finally paid first and last for his rathole apartment, he was strapped. 

It was a point of pride for him to never be late with a child support payment – not that his ex-wife needed the money, given that Stan was ridiculously wealthy, but it mattered to Danny. If he had to live off peanut butter sandwiches and cheap frozen dinners, keep the air conditioning off when Grace wasn’t around, and avoid unnecessary expenses like coffee shops, beer, and cable tv to try to build up his savings account again he would do it. It would take months before he stopped living paycheck to paycheck. If ever. Hawaii was expensive – everything from the apartment to gas for the Camaro to basic groceries cost way more than he was used to. 

And then Steve the maniac McGarrett handed him a gift – a weekend at a hotel he could never afford, vouchers for the hotel restaurant, and a full dolphin quest adventure package for Grace. It had been like a vacation – the kind they would have taken as a family back before the divorce. Grace’s smiles, which had started to look a little pitying, suddenly were beaming with excitement and pleasure. He didn’t know how he would top that weekend on their next visit, but it had been a welcome diversion from the status quo, and maybe the memory of it would be enough to get them through the next few visits. 

Danny walked into the new office early on Monday morning, a bounce in his step that hadn’t been there for months. He was excited about the new task force, despite his serious reservations about his new boss. Kono was kick ass for a rookie, Chin seemed a decent guy, although Danny was reserving judgement on a guy the rest of HPD thought was a dirty cop. If he was honest with himself, he was relieved to get away from HPD. Since Meka was reassigned, he had been without a partner. His fellow detectives weren’t interested in working with him, and his captain didn’t seem to be too impressed by the mainlander he had been saddled with by the chief. Danny may have laughed along with the guys every time he found another bottle of suntan lotion on his desk, but he heard the mutters about mainlanders and haoles. He didn’t really know what a haole was, but he knew enough to know it was an insult. The hostility had frankly started to worry him – being a cop was dangerous enough without being frozen out by his own precinct. He couldn’t quite shake the worry that someday they would be a little slow on providing backup. 

“Good morning, sunshine,” Steve greeted him cheerfully. He looked entirely too peppy for a Monday morning. “How was your weekend?” 

Danny rolled his eyes. “Fishing for gratitude, McGarrett?” he snarked, feeling a little defensive at the reminder of the debt he now owed. “Well, fine, you have it, ok? Grace had a great weekend.” 

Steve’s smile was bright, and he seemed oblivious to Danny’s peevishness. “Awesome.” He took a gulp from the cup in his hand, and Danny felt his stomach turn a little at the sight of the green sludge Steve had just slurped. 

“What the hell is the matter with you?” He peered into the cup, aghast. It was not only green, but slimy. 

Steve looked perplexed. “What?” 

“Cops don’t drink seaweed, we drink coffee. Coffee, McGarrett. That –“ he pointed, his lip curling in disgust, “is revolting.” 

Steve’s eyebrows drew together, and Danny couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or confused. “It’s not seaweed, Danny. It’s spirulina, chlorophyll, and wheatgrass in a coconut water base with vegan protein and fish oil. Great post-workout.” 

Danny blinked. “Spirulina? Sounds like seaweed to me. And post-workout drinks are Gatorade, and usually reserved for after a workout.” He couldn’t even address the rest of the ingredients. Chlorophyll? Fish oil? And what the hell was “vegan protein?” 

Steve shrugged. “First of all, Spirulina isn’t seaweed, it’s algae. Second, Gatorade is nothing but chemicals and dye. Third, I’m in week one of my workout rotation. Swam 35 minutes and ran 5 miles this morning. I wanted to beat the traffic in so I took my breakfast,” he held up his cup of sludge, “to go.” 

“You have a workout rotation?” Danny asked incredulously. “Is there anything the Navy isn’t OCD about McGarrett?”

“You think maybe you could call me Steve?” 

Danny was shaking his head. “You think maybe you shouldn’t exhaust yourself before we potentially spend our day running around after suspects and getting shot at?” 

Steve laughed at the exasperation in Danny’s voice. “Exhaust myself? Seriously, Danny? I’m a Navy SEAL. A light swim, a run, and a couple hundred pushups and situps doesn’t exhaust me. Gets the blood pumping for the day. I’m good to go.” 

A couple hundred pushups? Danny’s eyes couldn’t help being drawn to Steve’s upper arms – biceps and triceps bulged through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. Jesus. Even his forearms were thick and muscular. He forced himself to look away and shrugged. “Whatever gets you out of bed in the morning, super SEAL. Me, I prefer a coffee and a doughnut like any self-respecting cop.” 

The remainder of his rant was interrupted by the arrival of Kono and Chin. Steve greeted them cheerfully with a “Howzit,” before asking Kono something in Hawaiian pidgin that Danny couldn’t understand. Her grin was huge as she answered, “Good swells this morning, brah. Caught a couple long rides at Ehukai before the tourists started showing up.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re a morning person too,” Danny complained. He looked to Chin, who at least had the decency to grin at him and hold up his coffee.

“Don’t look at me, brah. Most exciting thing I did this morning was grab a coffee on my way in.” 

“Thank you!” Danny exclaimed, looking skyward as if praising the Gods. At least he wasn’t the only member of their team who thought sleeping as late as possible and then ingesting as much coffee as time would allow was the only acceptable way to spend a Monday morning before work. 

Steve switched gears then, going from the laid back hippie-drink guy to Navy Commander in a flash as he handed out assignments and got them started tracking leads generated from their raid on Sang Min’s operation. Hesse and Sang Min were out of the game, but there was still a network of criminals to be investigated, and they spent the remainder of the day digging for their next target. 

Danny had taken his lunch break with Kono and Chin, glad they were eating some sort of raw fish salad from the food truck next to the palace so he wasn’t feeling remotely envious of their lunch while he munched on a homemade sandwich. Steve had waved off their invitation to join them, and disappeared for an hour until he returned looking a little sweaty but decidedly more cheerful than when he left. Danny was beginning to suspect his boss was an exercise fanatic, and he was pretty certain the guy spent his lunch hour working out. 

They met up before 5 to go over the day’s work, and Steve gave them a game plan for the next day that thankfully had them out of the office and running down the leads they had dug up after a day of digging through financials, old arrest records, and case notes. “Get out of here guys, enjoy your evening.” 

Kono and Chin were gone pretty quickly, bantering easily back and forth on their way out the door. Danny was a little slower, having nothing to rush home for. He was pretty sure his office was bigger than his entire apartment, and the thought of an evening alone in that depressing hot box was not exactly appealing. 

Steve couldn’t help but notice his partner’s lacklustre response to the end of the workday. He thought of the sad little apartment he had visited when he first made Danny his partner, and imagined what it would be like to return there, alone, after a weekend with his daughter. He watched Danny head back into his office, shoulders rounded and gait slow. The man looked a little defeated, and Steve found himself following him. “Got any plans for dinner, Danno?” 

Danny looked up from behind his desk. Steve was leaning in the doorway to Danny’s office, watching him gather up his wallet and keys. 

Danny felt a quick flare of embarrassment. What was he going to say? Dinner was looking like a frozen Hungry Man or Kraft Dinner. Alone. In a room smaller than the porch on the back of Steve’s house. 

He shrugged. “Nah. Nothing special.” He frowned. “And I told you not to call me that.” 

Steve grinned unrepentantly. “Want to come over? Beer’s cold and I’m sure there’s some kind of game on.” 

Did he want to come over and drink beer with his maniac boss in the house where his father was murdered a few weeks ago? Sadly, Danny had to admit that it was an improvement over his own current plan, even if Steve was a nut job who knew nothing about police procedure and was likely to get him killed by failing to call for backup. After months of being ignored by almost an entire precinct of fellow cops, it was a nice change to have someone he worked with willing to spend time with him outside of work. “Yeah, sure, ok. You, uh, need me to pick up anything on my way? Beer? Pizza?” Not that he could really afford beer, or takeout pizza, even if he could figure out where the hell to get a good pie on this lump of lava rock.

“Danny, I’m inviting you over, you don’t need to bring anything. You know the way, I’ll see you there in a bit.” 

Danny spent the drive over to Steve’s house wondering why he had been invited. Was this simply Steve’s way of getting to know his new partner? Or did he have some other motive? 

Steve drove like a maniac, so by the time Danny arrived his host had already changed into board shorts and a ragged Annapolis t-shirt and established himself on the lanai with two open beers. He handed one over to Danny cheerfully when he appeared. “Make yourself at home, Danny,” he offered. “Feel free to take off the patent leather loafers,” he added with a grin. “There’s some spare slippahs just inside the door if you want.”

Danny glanced at Steve’s feet and was unsurprised to see he had exchanged his combat boots for flip flops. “Slippers?” he questioned. 

“Slippahs,” Steve corrected. He wiggled a foot at Danny. His feet were tanned, and Danny was irritated to notice that even his feet looked muscular. Ridiculous. “Flip flops, brah.” 

Danny rolled his eyes. Did everything need to have it’s own name in Hawaii? They couldn’t just call them flip flops? “My feet are fine in shoes.” 

“You hungry?”

“I could eat,” Danny said cautiously, wondering what a perpetual bachelor like Steve would offer. He doubted the guy could cook, although he did seem to be some sort of health nut, which made Danny wonder if he was about to be served a massive salad or maybe some of that algae crap. He had started the day with a bowl of cereal, had a PBJ sandwich for lunch, with only a couple granola bars pilfered from the cupboard where he kept Grace’s snacks in the afternoon. He was starving. 

“Awesome. I speared a few mahi-mahi yesterday and cleaned them up so I have some fillets ready for marinating.” He busied himself lighting his grill while he talked. “You want to join me in the kitchen while I get it ready or stay out here?” 

Danny was curious now – he “speared” the fish? Like, with a spear? What the hell. And what was McGarrett going to do in the kitchen? This he had to see. “Yeah, I’ll come with. Don’t know that I’ll be much help, but I can keep you company,” he admitted. 

“You don’t cook, Danny?” Steve asked as he led Danny into the kitchen. He sounded interested, not judgemental, so Danny was able to keep his hackles from rising too much. Steve quickly prepared a pot of brown rice and put it on to cook. Danny wasn’t much of a rice guy, his family were more into potatoes, although he did love a good risotto. He didn’t think he’d ever had brown rice. 

“Never had much opportunity I guess. I was a stereotypical bachelor before I met Rachel. Ate out at my local a lot, and I have a mother and two sisters who were always happy to feed me when I needed a home-cooked meal.” He watched as Steve pulled out a platter of fish fillets from the fridge. He was gathering ingredients rapidly, clearly without having to really think about what he was doing. Danny watched with interest as Steve sprinkled olive oil, then ground sea salt and black pepper over the platter. He had never in his life ground salt over anything before – he always bought the big box of table salt at Costco. Of course he had been in plenty of Italian restaurants where they ground black peppercorns over everything so he was familiar with that at least. 

“I’m not much of a fancy cook, but I’ve been eating in mess halls since I was sixteen, so I learned pretty quick if I wanted anything fresh I’d have to make it myself,” Steve explained. He was mixing spices into a bowl now, and Danny watched as paprika, cumin, and oregano were sprinkled in. He wanted to ask about Steve eating in mess halls at sixteen– didn’t you have to be eighteen to join the Navy?? But he wasn’t sure how Steve would react to a question about his personal life. The guy was kind of uptight. He resolved to keep the conversation focused on innocent topics – no point in riling the man up. 

Steve pulled a garlic bulb out of the refrigerator along with a weird brown root that Danny couldn’t identify. He watched as Steve confidently extracted a couple cloves of garlic, smashed them enthusiastically with the side of his knife, then rapidly chopped. He used the knife to lift the pungent garlic into the bowl. 

“What is that?” Danny asked. Steve was scraping the weird root with a spoon, pulling off a thin layer that looked like brown paper. 

“Ginger root. You never had it before?” 

“I’ve seen ground ginger before. But that’s like – a powder.” 

Steve grinned. “This is fresher. There’s no comparison – this tastes way better.” He chopped again, the knife rapidly slicing ginger. This time when he scooped it up he held the knife out to Danny. “Smell that.” 

Danny inhaled. “Wow. That does smell good,” he admitted. 

It was tossed into Steve’s spice bowl, then followed with lime juice, which Steve squeezed out of a fresh lime from the bowl on his counter. Danny had never cut a lime without the intention of garnishing a cocktail. Steve stirred up the mixture, dipped in his pinky finger and tasted, then added some crushed red pepper. He tasted again, nodded his approval, and offered the bowl to Danny. 

“Taste.”

Danny mimicked Steve, tasting the mixture on his pinky. It had a little heat from the ginger and pepper and something else, richer. “It’s smoky?” 

“That’s the paprika. Never buy cheap spices, always get a good smoked paprika.” Steve rubbed the mixture over the fish and returned it to the fridge. “We’ll let that sit for a bit while I make a salsa,” he said, quickly washing his hands at the sink before returning to the fridge to rummage through the drawers. 

“Salsa?” Was Steve planning on serving him tortilla chips with his dinner? “Is that a mango?” he asked dubiously, wondering what the hell mango had to do with salsa. 

“Mango salsa,” Steve explained, deftly removing the skin and pit, his knife flashing as he diced the fruit. “Goes great with fish, really brings out the flavour of the mahi-mahi.” His knife was flashing through cucumbers, red onion, and some weirdly shaped tomatoes. “Kumatos,” Steve explained, holding up a reddish brown tomato when he saw Danny’s quizzical look. “Really good variety of tomatoes.” An avocado, red bell pepper, and a finely chopped jalapeno pepper followed. The knife flashed against the wood cutting board as Steve worked, and Danny couldn’t help but wonder if he learned those knife skills at some kind of crazy SEAL silent killing course. Steve glanced at the pineapple sitting on the counter. It would go nicely, but he could easily recall Danny’s voice in full rant mode calling Oahu a “pineapple infested” island, so he decided it was safer to skip it. Danny was pretty mellow right now, he’d like to keep him that way.

“And that?” Danny asked, as Steve chopped away at a green herb that looked like parsley but certainly didn’t smell like any parsley Danny had ever had. 

“Cilantro.” 

It all ended up in a bowl with another lime cut in half and juiced over it, Steve’s left hand catching seeds while his right squeezed the lime. He mixed the salsa roughly with his hand, then grated a little sea salt and black pepper over the bowl. He drizzled in a little olive oil and mixed again. He washed his hands and swapped the bowl of salsa for the platter of fish. “Ready for the grill,” he announced, picking up his grilling implements before leading Danny back outside. Danny helpfully rescued Steve’s beer from the kitchen table and followed, astonished at how little time that had actually taken. Seasoning the fish had only been a few minutes, and the salsa was chopped and assembled in about fifteen minutes, which was, according to Steve, just enough time for marinating. 

Steve dashed back inside for some oil for his grill. The fish hit the grill with a soft sizzle, and Steve lowered the lid quickly. “Best just to let it sit, don’t give into temptation and mess around with it too much,” he advised. He checked his watch so he could time it. 

“So, tell me about Grace. How’s she liking her new school?” Steve asked. The awkwardness of trying to make small talk with a new partner was pretty much obliterated at that point – there was nothing Danny liked talking about more than his daughter. He happily filled Steve in on how Grace was finding her school, her classes, her new after-school activities, her friends, and her latest passion – dolphins. 

Steve enjoyed listening to Danny expound on his daughter. Most of what Danny Williams had to say could be classified as a rant; Steve had never met anyone more negative or volatile than his partner. But when the guy got started on his daughter, his face lit up and he actually sounded happy. It was the same amazing transformation Steve had seen that first time they rode in the car together, when Danny had gotten a phone call from Grace. He went from pissed to sappy, devoted Dad in one quick second. He let Danny monopolize the conversation while he finished dinner, Danny happily following him into the house to collect plates and utensils, watching him turn the fish, then bring out the rice and salsa. Steve refreshed their beers before putting the finished fish on a platter and setting it on the small table on the lanai. He saw Danny hesitating, so he went ahead and put a hefty serving of rice on a plate, added a couple fillets and topped the whole thing with a healthy amount of salsa. “Go ahead,” he encouraged, handing Danny’s plate over before serving himself. 

He watched Danny take the first bite, his eyes widening as the flavour hit him. “Mmmph.” He swallowed and grinned happily at Steve. “That is amazing. Oh my god. I can’t believe you just,” his hands waved wildly over the plate, “you just made this!” He quickly shoveled another forkful into his mouth. “I’ve been feeding my daughter take-out since the divorce. The only thing I’ve learned how to make is scrambled eggs and pancakes,” he admitted ruefully. 

Steve began eating his own meal, feeling satisfied with himself for managing to put a smile on Danny’s face. The guy had looked so despondent at the end of the day, and all Steve could picture was him heading back to that depressing room and sitting on his pathetic pull-out couch alone to eat take out or something. Steve didn’t mind being alone. After years of living in close quarters, from boarding school to residence at Annapolis, to shared quarters on ships and with his SEAL team, he happily took the opportunity for solitude whenever he could. But a guy who talked as much as Danny Williams was clearly a guy who was used to company. Steve knew he had to be feeling the loneliness of uprooting himself from a station full of cops he’d worked with for years, away from what sounded like a close-knit family, to come live on an island where he knew no one but his daughter and ex-wife. His suspicion was proven accurate when Danny actually agreed to join him for dinner, because he was pretty sure the guy didn’t even like him much. 

Steve had been leading men for years, and by now it was second nature to keep an eye on his guys and make sure they were ok, even when they weren’t on a mission. He knew when his men needed to let off a little steam together, needed to be kept busy with some mindless drills, and needed a little solitude or time off base to connect with people who didn’t wear a uniform. Somehow, in the short period of time he had known Danny Williams, the guy had become one of his team, and Steve already felt responsible to help keep him on an even keel. “I’m glad you like it.” He paused, then forged ahead, hoping Danny wouldn’t see the manipulation for what it was. “It’s not much fun cooking for just myself. I appreciate the company.” 

Danny looked away from his food, his eyes meeting Steve’s, searching. “And the chance to show off your skills,” Danny accused playfully. 

Steve smirked. “And that.” The smirk faded then, and he took a gamble, hoping his prickly partner wouldn’t take offense. “Really, I’m not that skilled. I don’t make anything complicated. I’ve just spent enough years cooking for myself that I learned what I like. If you want to learn a few recipes to share with Grace, I’d be happy to show you,” he offered. 

Danny stared at him, considering. Steve had actually sounded sincere, none of the mockery Danny expected evident in the offer. He didn’t want to look incompetent in front of the man who had just recently hired him. But then, he hadn’t been hired for his skills in the kitchen. And it would be way less expensive to make some meals for Grace instead of eating out all the time. And he knew he was shortchanging his daughter – what they were doing now wasn’t exactly healthy. He might console himself with the thought that she was only eating fast food every second weekend, but he knew it wasn’t good for her. If it was just himself he was worried about, he would have turned down Steve’s offer instantly. Just like he would have turned down the Kahala Hotel. But for Grace…for his daughter, he would swallow his pride. “Yeah, uh, thanks, that would be good.” 

“That’s awesome.” 

Steve’s smile was bright, and he looked sincerely happy that Danny had agreed. As if he would enjoy teaching a mainlander cop how to cook. Danny felt an actual genuine smile spread across his own face in response. Other than Meka, Kono, and maybe Chin, he hadn’t met a single person on this island he thought he might enjoy spending time with. And out of those three, he was only sure that Meka liked him back enough to spend time with him outside of work. Unbelievably, it looked like Steve McGarrett was going to be the second person on the very short list of friends he had in Hawaii. Watching Steve smile at him across the table as he ate the delicious meal he had made, Danny felt a little of the gut churning tension that had been his constant companion since the divorce ease a bit. Maybe this new partnership wasn’t going to be so terrible after all.


End file.
